[lbo-talk] Notes Towards a Critiq8ue of Progress (1)

Miles Jackson cqmv at pdx.edu
Sat Feb 14 13:26:08 PST 2009


Shane Mage wrote:
>
> On Feb 14, 2009, at 11:48 AM, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>> Stephen Jay Gould suggests... that "Higher" life forms, far
>> from being the logical or necessary emergence from life as it existed
>> in the first billion years or so, were in fact highly unlikely. That
>> we find ourselves here is the result of innumerable contingencies,
>> none of which had a high probability.
>
>
>
> The dogmatism of Darwinists like Gould is amazing. Knowing nothing
> except received opinion about conditions in the prehistoric past he
> claimed to know the "probability" of "innumerable" events, none of
> which he, or anyone else, knows the slightest bit about. It seems he
> didn't even realize that all past macroscopic (non-quantum) events,
> known and unknown, are known (because they took place) to have been
> 100% certain. Probability is an *ex ante*, not an *ex post* category.
> Except *perhaps* at the quantum level probability expresses our
> uncertainty, not anything about nature. Le Bon Dieu does not play dice
> with the universe.

No, you're missing Gould's point. The thought experiment involves rewinding history and estimating the "ex ante" probability of getting the same result in alternate timelines 2 through n. From the standpoint of probability theory, it is highly unlikely that a long string of random events would occur exactly the same way more than once. Simple example: if you flip 5 heads in a row with a fair coin, next time you flip a coin 5 times you are very, very unlikely to see 5 heads in a row.

Thus it is almost certain that a "rewind" of history would lead to different outcomes, simply because random events would "break" in different ways in each timeline.

I agree that this probability argument is moot if you believe that there is an intelligent deity guiding the development of the universe. (I'm not sure if the last sentence of your post is serious or facetious.)

Miles



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